As inaugural members of the Salesforce Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) Partner Network, we put elite engineers right into client operations to rapidly deploy Salesforce Agentforce and turn AI ambition into AI ROI.
Most organizations face two major hurdles when implementing AI: projects stall in the pilot phase, or live agents fail to pay off. According to our recent AI Operations Report (based on research conducted with Oxford Economics), 74% of organizations are increasing AI investment this year, yet only 20% strongly agree their AI initiatives have delivered measurable business value. Stretched internal teams are getting bogged down in endless planning and generic playbooks, losing momentum and missing their ROI targets.
The “Unicorn” Engineer
A Forward Deployed Engineer is a hands-on technical role in which the engineer works directly alongside a customer to build, customize, and rapidly deploy Salesforce solutions — bridging the platform’s capabilities and the client’s specific business needs.
“An FDE is what we call a unicorn. They’re not just a consultant writing spec docs, and they’re not just a developer who disappears to code in a silo. They do both. They embed with our customer, see how work actually happens day-to-day, and then build working agents around it fast.”
JP Owens, Chief Growth Officer, Coastal
By plugging this dual expertise directly into customer operations, our FDEs pinpoint the most urgent problems rather than trying to map an entire organization. From there, our engineers use repeatable RAG frameworks to turn unstructured data into precise, reliable agent outputs across multiple sectors, including financial services, healthcare, and manufacturing.
Real-World Success: Driving Hard ROI in Mortgage Lending
This targeted approach is already delivering results. In a recent project with a mortgage lender managing $30 billion in assets, our FDEs tackled manual document processing: a massive workflow overloaded with compliance paperwork, loan files, and underwriting documentation.
Rather than automating the entire complex pipeline, the FDE team isolated the single document type causing the most manual rework. Within weeks, they built and tested a Salesforce AI-powered processing agent that saved $3 per document. At a volume of tens of thousands of documents per month, those massive savings overcame internal hesitation and paved the way for broader enterprise integration.
“Businesses can’t wait 18 months to see value, and frankly, they shouldn’t have to. Coastal has always focused on agile delivery and producing impact fast. The Salesforce FDE Partner Network builds on that approach, giving us another way to come in with a focused scope and prove real capability — not just show a flashy demo. Proof that your data can support an agent, proof that your team will actually use it, and proof that the numbers add up.”
JP Owens, Chief Growth Officer, Coastal
Ensuring Quality and Post-Launch Success
We reduce risk and validate performance up front through a focused “confidence build” process, proving an agent can handle real-world edge cases before it touches live data. Once in production, keeping that agent reliable is the next operational challenge. Coastal’s research shows that 58% of organizations cite internal team bandwidth as their biggest barrier to running AI post-launch, while 50% report that end users don’t trust AI outputs enough to act on them.
Using both our FDEs and our Waves for Agentic Ops service, Coastal is launching agents quickly and being the AI operating partner companies need. This includes monitoring agent behavior, fine-tuning accuracy, driving user adoption, and escalating complex technical barriers directly to Salesforce engineering via our exclusive FDE access.
The Coastal FDE Advantage
- Industry-Savvy “Unicorns”: Engineers with deep domain knowledge who skip long discovery phases and deploy tailored, compliant solutions.
- Direct Salesforce Access: Close collaboration and fast escalation paths with Salesforce engineering.
- Rapid Value Sprints: Identify, prioritize, and align Agentforce use cases with your business roadmap using Coastal’s True North approach to launch high-value agents in weeks.
- Continuous AI Operations: Full post-launch management through Waves for Agentic Ops so your AI tools stay accurate and widely adopted over time.
Ready to accelerate your AI deployment? Get in touch to learn how Coastal’s FDEs can deliver measurable ROAI.
